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Sunday, 15 September 2013

Outrage over failure to prosecute doctors for sex selection abortions reaches new heights

It has not been an easy two weeks for Keir Starmer
(pictured), the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

When it emerged on 4 September that the Crown Prosecution
Service, which he heads, would not be bringing charges against two
doctors who had been caught authorising abortions purely on grounds of
gender, the outrage was immediate.

Within hours the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that sex
selection abortions were ‘completely unacceptable’ and called
for the Attorney General Dominic Grieve to seek an ‘urgent clarification’ about
the decision.

The following day Lord Macdonald, the former DPP, described
the decision as ‘very dubious’ and amounted to letting doctors ‘avoid
criminal action’ because of their professional status - undermining the basic
principle that ‘everyone is equal under the law’.

The CPS then made the situation worse by arguing that it was
down to doctors to ‘interpret the law’ and that they had ‘wide discretion’ to
assess whether a termination is legal or not. Although there was enough
evidence to bring a prosecution it was not in the public interest to do so, they
claimed. The matter was more appropriately a matter for the General Medical
Council (GMC).

This led the GMC to distance
itself from the CPS’s decision, insisting that, as a professional regulator,
it should not be seen as a ‘substitute’ for the criminal justice system and is
not there to ‘punish doctors’.

Emily Thornberry, Labour shadow attorney general, then wrote
to the DPP to request an urgent review of the decision. She cut right
to the heart of the issues at stake (full text here):

‘The GMC is a
regulator and cannot bring criminal proceedings. The provisions of the Abortion
Act 1967 are crystal clear. The conduct of abortions for reasons not stated in
that Act is a criminal offence, not just a regulatory one. To decide not
prosecute because a regulator can hear the matter instead is to disapply the
law and undermine the will of Parliament.’

David Burrowes, a Tory member of the all-party parliamentary
Pro-Life Group, then raised
the issue in the Commons. He said: ‘There is urgent need for a statement to
clarify whether the restrictions on choice in the Abortion Act are now
meaningless.’

This led to the Prime Minister expressing
concern in response to a parliamentary question from Tory MP Nadine
Dorries.

Mr Cameron praised The Daily Telegraph for highlighting
‘this important case’ and said it was ‘absolutely right’ that the doctors could
face ‘professional’ consequences.

This weekend 50 MPs supported the Health Secretary’s call
for the matter to be urgently investigated.

In a letter
to the Daily Telegraph they called the decision a ‘step back in the fight for
gender equality’ and accused the DPP of usurping parliament’s role:

‘The decision by the
CPS could lead to the conclusion that gender-specific abortion is merely a
matter of professional misconduct rather than illegal. This is clearly
unconstitutional as it is for Parliament to legislate to change the law, and it
has occurred without recourse to Parliament. Safeguards in the 1967 Abortion
Act need to be properly applied and enforced. Doctors are not above the law and
the General Medical Council cannot be a substitute for the courts.’

Other
critics have accused the DPP of ‘double standards’ over abortion laws and
operating a policy ‘worthy of Alice in Wonderland’.

Last Friday the Christian Legal Centre said
it was preparing for a private prosecution against the two doctors.

‘We are preparing for a private prosecution or judicial
review, but we may do both,’ said chief executive Andrea Williams. ‘We will not
let the matter go.’

I was asked to comment
and said to the Telegraph that if the CPS won’t do its job then concerned
citizens will step in. The CPS was giving the message that people wanting
sex-selective abortions should come to Britain and that if the law is not
upheld it will be increasingly flouted by unscrupulous people.

By failing to act the DPP has signalled that Britain is open for business as far as sex selection abortions are concerned.

I can’t ever recall any issue related to abortion uniting those
across the political spectrum in the way this has done. It has brought prolife
activists and prochoice feminist factions together in an extraordinary way
resulting in Keir Starmer attracting the wrath of all sides.

Now all the heat is on the DPP to explain fully why he has
not upheld the will of parliament. We are all waiting.

15 comments:

I've had a second letter from the Dept. for Health (ironic isn't it) that implies that investigations on the pre-signing of HSA1 forms is continuing. One wonders why it has taken so long however. It is sad that the Tories, ostensibly in favour of law 'n order, have so clearly failed to act.

What's wrong with sex selective abortions? What if you can only afford to have four children and you already have three boys? Wouldn't you want to abort and try again to balance things out a bit? How is this different from people who have abortions because they don't want to care for a sick baby, or because they don't have enough in the bank, or it isn't the right time in their career?

Personally, I think abortion is always wrong, but for those who think abortion is fine for the purposes of family planning it seems kind of arbitrary to stop at sex selection.

You could soon have tourists from India come to the UK for sex selective abortions if things remain the same. Please read http://jeevankuruvilla.blogspot.in/2013/02/sex-selection-slap-on-face-for-doctors.html and also the links from this post.

No, don't be ridiculous - there won't be any tourists from India because sex-selection is already being widely practised there (illegally, of course). The Indian govt is successfully using "decoys", posing as women wanting to kill their female babies, to catch these doctors out. So the good news is that the govt in India is at least TRYING to stamp out the practice.

But here in the UK, we seem to be condoning it. British doctors who engage in it SHOULD be prosecuted, in order to prevent a situation similar to India, where women can go and get illegal sex-selection abortions carried out.

It will also send a strong signal to all Asian patients (and doctors) that they cannot do this sort of thing in Britain and get away with it.

I wonder if it is Political Correctness that prevents them from prosecuting - because both the doctors and their patients were Asian. What do you think, Peter?

Just had a look at your blog post on female feticide, Jeevan Kuruvilla. Shocking, but glad you've highlighted it - perhaps those who are pro-abortion will see clearly how ghastly it all is. Peter, perhaps you can link to this post - your readers may be interested. The reality of abortion is very different from the "choice" that women in the west keep banging on.

This is far from the first time the DPP has failed in his duty. If, all those years ago, there has been prosecutions on those who assisted people to travel to Switzerland to kill themselves, the calls for legalising euthanasia would not become so incessant: a few people serving 15 year terms would have drawn a sharp line under the matter. Our increasingly liberal elite won't enforce the few remaining restrictions we have on the destruction of life.

I suspect that is what the DPP is afraid of. If he prosecutes these doctors then he will be asked why he hasn't prosecuted those hundreds every year who pre-sign abortion forms (a form of perjury) and those thousands who tick the mental health box when there is no evidence that keeping a baby constitutes any greater danger to mental health than abortion does (in fact the evidence points the other way).

I find it amazing that the CPS will support the prosecution of elderly B&B owners because they will discriminate against married and non-married people (where the non-married people were same sex) ... BUT will openly allow discrimination of LIFE by parents and doctors according to gender.

This, surely, is the ultimate feminist issue. To deny someone life because they are a girl.

And yet the CPS thinks it's not worth upholding the law to support future women.

Because our society's definition of morality now boils down to 'freedom to do what I want without anyone else getting in the way'. The hotel owners were stopping people from sleeping together in their hotel. Their crime was causing people inconvenience and embarrassment, but in our society that is a greater evil than having an abortion because your family wanted you to have a boy.

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Kiwi, Christian and Medical

This blog deals mainly with matters at the interface of Christianity and Medicine. But I do also diverge into other subjects - especially New Zealand, rugby, economics, developing world, politics and topics of general Christian and/or medical interest. The opinions expressed here are mine and may not necessarily reflect the views of my employer or anyone else associated with me.

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I am CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organisation with 4,500 UK doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. The opinions expressed here however are mine, and may not necessarily reflect the views of CMF or anyone else associated with me.